Jack had tucked all of Toulouse’s effects into a knapsack. He and Frank had pored through the two books, but there were still some missing pieces to the puzzle. He understood that the feds were after the book that included the list of assassinations. He felt sure, though, that Cristos had different motives. There was something else there, something he wasn’t seeing.
Jack pulled out Toulouse’s passport. He read through all of the visa stamps, imagining all of the places Toulouse had traveled to in the last month. He flipped back to the front and stared at his picture. There was a slight resemblance to Cristos, but there was something else… He looked at the dagger, at the prayer necklace.
Jack turned his attention to his wrist, the tattoo. He could remember the man writing the words; he could see him kneeling beside him on the riverbank.
Jack closed his eyes, trying to draw up his memory. He could see the swollen river, moonlight shining down upon him…
“Did you give her the necklace, Jack?” the man whispered.
And Jack finally knew who the man was, who had emerged from the woods, who had written on his arm, who had saved him.
And it was impossible…
… for the man died this past week.
Toulouse paused from his writing, finally looking at Jack, staring into his eyes.
“You did not answer me, Jack. Did you give her the necklace?” Toulouse asked.
Something fell on Mia’s shoulder. She flinched and kicked back in the ever-rising water until she heard someone calling her. She reached over to find a rope dropped down in the pit beside her. She could see nothing above but knew that if she didn’t grab hold, she would surely die, and no one would ever find her.
She held tight and was hauled up. It was only ten feet, but it felt like forever; the pit collapsing behind her as her feet dug into its muddy walls.
She finally crested the rim, bloodied, bruised, and covered in mud. Standing there, holding the other end of the rope, was Cristos.
Standing beside him were Jacob and a taller middle-aged man. Jacob’s face was bloodied, his right eye swollen. “If Jacob had carried out his orders, you wouldn’t be here right now,” Cristos said as they began walking back to the estate.
The rain had let up. Lightning still flashed, although its rumble was seconds behind the glow.
“I’m glad you survived,” Cristos said. “Your husband is on his way, and how would it look if you died before he got here?”
CHAPTER 42
Trudeau Islandl oomed on the horizon, intermittently appearing and disappearing behind sheets of rain and drifting fog. The seas were rough as Frank piloted the boat through the six-foot choppy swells.
The storm burst from the dark clouds in five-minute onslaughts of horizontal rain before falling back to a fine mist. Against every regulation, they cut through the waters without running lights, invisible to anyone watching from the island and also to any other approaching vessel. Jack and Frank kept their eyes peeled for on-coming boats and ships, but it was difficult with visibility waxing and waning.
The trip out was nearing an hour when Frank passed the outer edge of the island. The tall white lighthouse on the north ridge came into view, its beam cutting through the stormy night like the sharp blade of a sword. They circled the island twice, confirming that the lights of the mansion were lit and that the estate was occupied.
After quick debate, they approached from the western side and weighed anchor fifty yards from shore.
Within the salon of the boat, Jack checked his gun, ejecting the clip, verifying his bullet count. He cleared his pockets, throwing his money, his wallet, and the envelope with the letter to Cristos-the one he still couldn’t remember writing-onto the table. He opted to hold on to Charlie’s rabbit foot-he chose to believe in every talisman he could at the moment-and the small jewelry box with Mia’s pearl choker inside. It was like having her with him, something he could draw strength from.
Tucking his gun back into his pants, he caught a glimpse of the envelope on the table. There was nothing written on the outside.
Confused, Jack grabbed it, opened it, and withdrew the note. He looked at it, turned it over in his hand three times, and felt his head spin. It was his stationery, no doubt about it. It was the letter he had stuffed into his pocket, the one he had read in Cristos’s Suburban… but it was blank.
Frank and Jack took the small skiff to the sandy beach on the western shore, far out of sight of the estate. The storm had picked up, visibility barely reaching the Hatteras one hundred fifty feet away. Jack looked over his shoulder, trying to see the distant shore two miles away where his daughters were sleeping in his parents’ home. He couldn’t suppress the creeping fear that Cristos was so close to them.
Working off of twenty-year-old memories, Jack led the way through the woods, finding the pathway of his youth nonexistent but his direction still accurate as they emerged at the overgrown side yard of the estate.
Staying within the shadows, they worked their way toward the docks, finding two high-speed cigarette boats in the slip. There were no guards walking around, no one in the boats.
Rounding the outer perimeter of light wash, Jack and Frank raced around the grounds to the far eastern edge, where the outbuildings, communication center, and generator were located. Frank examined the thirty-foot-square generator, a ten-ton unit capable of generating power for the house plus enough electricity to power a neighborhood. On the far side, adjacent to a separate deep-water dock, was a 25,000-gallon fuel tank, its meter indicating that it was recently topped off.
“You have no idea where she is in there, do you?”
“No.” Jack shook his head.
“How the hell are we going to find her without getting killed?”
Jack looked around, at the generator, the stone mansion, the stormy ocean, until his eyes were finally distracted by the sweeping light on the north side of the island.
Frank stood on the deck of the first high-speed cigarette boat. He opened the fuel spout on the two-hundred-gallon tank and punctured the line, allowing the gas to pour along the deck, seeping into the forward cabin. He followed suit with the second boat and ran back to the communication house.
Beyond the satellite dishes and centralized communication systems, most of the thousand-square-foot house was for storage of everything from lawn-maintenance equipment to food and supplies offloaded from the nearby deep-water dock. He grabbed several gas jugs and filled them from the 25,000-gallon fuel tank, pouring and scattering them along the concrete floor.
Heading back outside, he returned to the tank and opened the lower fuel drain a quarter of a turn to allow the gas to flow out in small streams toward the main house.
Frank turned to the generator, glanced at his watch, and, laying his hand on the kill switch, watched as Jack arrived at the front door of the mansion.
• • •
Jack stood before the large mahogany door when the lights went out, plunging the entire estate into darkness. Jack looked at his watch; the second hand just swept past 1:30 a.m.
He pounded his fist against the door.
Five seconds later, a young dark-haired man with a bruised and battered face opened the door and pointed his pistol in Jack’s face.
“Bravo,” Cristos said as he stepped into the doorway. “You figured out where I was.”